Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Finance Minister told that the economic recovery has been “Patchy” in the second quarter. The government is not willing to provide financial support to bring back demand and spending. The government has an open mind on the matter and a decision on when to spend and how much to spend will be taken at suitable time said Nirmala Sitharaman.
Nirmala Sitharaman in an interview said that the intensity of the problem is distinctive and the government has been engaging with all stakeholders. As of now, no firm assessment has been made on the additional revenue support. Sitharaman said that the crisis have been turned into an opportunity as directed by our prime minister Narendra Modi and has brought in several systemic reforms in banking sectors, agriculture, power, labour, etc. Sitharaman said that ‘We could have easily opted for providing some help and not do anything, but we went for critical reforms’.
There was a report on public sector enterprises which was announced as part of the Atmanirbhar package, for which Sitharaman accepted that the issue has been pending since a very long time. The cabinet will take a look at it shortly.Banks may or may not be included in the strategic list, which will depend on the cabinet.
‘Heavy lifting’ for bringing the economy has been left to the Reserve Bank of India said the Minister. She added ‘I may not be seen as doing the heavy lifting, but what is important is whether my actions are making a real difference on the ground’, she is grateful to the Reserve Bank of India for not enclosing itself to monitoring inflation. This state demands solutions and that’s what the central bank is doing. Sitharaman said banks have also been affected in these difficult situations by the pandemic. On other side the banks will also go down if the customers go down.
